Lance of Earth and Sky - By Erin Hoffman Page 0,12

living six hundred years—hardly right. Maybe that's why he wants to speak with you.”

“The emperor?” Vidarian barely managed to tame his voice down from a squeak.

“Yes indeed,” Alain smiled, reaching up to pet the velvety nose of his steed, which seemed to have calmed down a bit. “I come with an imperial summons, didn't they tell you?”

“They didn't,” he said numbly, thoughts racing.

* What are you going to do? * For once Ruby didn't have a quick remark.

“I'll—leave in the morning, of course.”

* My ship, and my body, * Ruby growled, * are in the other direction. *

Would you have me ignore the summons, and have us all cut down by Sky Knights halfway there? Perhaps you think you'd have better luck asking one of them after we're all dead. He hid the heat of his thoughts behind a false mask and gratitude for the messenger.

Alain smiled again and extended his hand, which Vidarian shook out of reflex. Then he mumbled an excuse, something about needing to pack. Ruby hadn't answered, and so as he retreated, Vidarian continued, guiltily, The emperor can't want much, or he'd've sent more than a broken-down old warhorse to fetch us. We'll send word to the Viere as soon as we reach the city. He turned to go find Thalnarra and Altair.

But just as he reached the edge of the campfires, someone else found him.

When he turned and saw her approaching, Vidarian froze. She was moving determinedly toward him, and still he found himself paralyzed. What were they, now?

“We should talk,” Ariadel said. Her face and body were still wan from illness, but there in the camp, speaking to him after so long a silence, it seemed she had never been more beautiful. Or more alive. He fought against his own reaction, but what welled up in place of that wordless gratitude was something less productive.

“I'm not going to apologize.” The words poured out before he could stop them. And once they were out, even with Ariadel's face flushing with anger, he couldn't take them back.

“What?” The question was pointed, absent any confusion, an invitation back from the brink. Part of him ached to seize it.

“I'm not going to apologize,” he ground out the words again, though the thunderous look she gave him warned him not to, “for opening the gate. For saving you.”

“That's not—” she began, then flushed again, too angry to speak. He nearly quailed; in spite of everything, he had never seen her this angry. “There's something else.”

He waited.

“I—” she looked up again, into his eyes, and for a moment they were themselves again, and whatever she was about to say was the most important thing he'd ever heard.

And then her face clouded over with the mysterious expression she'd had for the last two weeks, since the gate, and she was gone behind it. “I'm going with Thalnarra.”

He recognized a tack when he saw one, but knew that asking her wasn't going to get the answer now. And with that realization all the rest came crashing down on him again, the mess that he'd made of things.

// What's this? // Thalnarra's voice, all hearth-warmth and sweet spices, filled his mind. // You're going with me? But I'm going with him. //

“You are?” they said together, then exchanged another awkward look.

// If he's going into the lion's den, he can't go with only the guardianship of this air-addled lightweight, // she indicated Altair with a flick of her beak, who crouched near one of the campfires with a copious pile of huge fish. Altair didn't look up from his meal, but made what Vidarian assumed to be a rather rude gesture with the feathered tip of his tail. // Besides, // she added, her voice like a waft of cinnamon, // we look better in pairs. //

“That settles that, then,” Vidarian sighed, not unhappily. “If she's going with me…?”

“I'm staying here,” Ariadel said. “With the rest of the pride.”

“If I may—” Calphille said shyly, and Vidarian noticed her for the first time, framed against one of the fires. She was holding the wolf pup, to his surprise. “I'd like to come with you as well.”

Ariadel shot him a look that was half fury and half disbelief, then stalked off without a word.

He started to follow her, then stopped, three separate times before he gave it up. Calphille lowered the pup to the ground and it scrambled over to him, staying low and nervous. Vidarian held back a sigh. “We'll leave first thing in